Tata Steel's UK unit sale process begins on Monday

Tata Steel will allow a reasonable period to find a buyer, putting to rest speculation that the company wanted a quick sale of the cash-bleeding UK plantsReeba Zachariah | TNN | April 07, 2016, 10:30 IST

MUMBAI: Tata Steel will begin the formal process to sell its UK units by Monday (April 11), British business minister Sajid Javid tweeted after a two-hour meeting with the company's chairman Cyrus Mistry at Bombay House, the Tata Group's headquarters, on Wednesday. This was Javid's first meeting with Mistry after Tata Steel, UK's biggest steel producer, announced its exit from the country.

The minister received flak for being on a business-cum-leisure trip in Australia when Tata Steel last week declared its intention to pull out of all its UK operations, which could lead to thousands of job losses.

While no time frame has been set for the sale of the UK units, Javid wrote on his Twitter handle that Tata Steel will allow a reasonable period to find a buyer, putting to rest speculation that the company wanted a quick sale of the cash-bleeding UK plants. Tata Steel is losing one million pounds a day in its British operations following a collapse in steel prices, mainly due to the market being flooded by cheap Chinese products and poor demand.

Javid, according to BBC News, said that a number of parties will come forward for the assets once the formal process starts. So far, Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House's interest in the business is the only one known. The 46-year-old minister, who arrived at Bombay House at 3.55 pm in a white Range Rover and left at 6 pm, described his meeting with Mistry to be "constructive and positive".

Javid also met Tata Steel's CFO Koushik Chatterjee, the overseer of the divestment of the UK units, and Madhu Kannan, head -business development, Tata Group. He also said that the government will do all it can to help secure a "serious" buyer for Tata Steel's UK units, which directly employees 15,000 people and supports thousands of other jobs. Javid also said, "I'm determined to do all I can to secure a long-term viable future for UK#steel and workers."